Some on the Right vowed to continue the fight against MK Hanin Zoabi's candidacy despite the attorney-general's opinion.

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Photo credit: AP

Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein on Monday communicated that petitions to disqualify Knesset candidates and lists should be rejected. The opinions were expressed to Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, chairman of the Central Election Committee.

Weinstein opposes all the petitions to disqualify parties, including those against the Arab-Israeli National Democratic Assembly and Ra'am-Ta'al parties, the ultranationalist Strong Israel party and the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties. He also opposed the personal petition against MK Hanin Zoabi, a member of the National Democratic Assembly, saying there was insufficient evidence against her.

Weinstein points out there was evidence that members of the National Democratic Assembly and Ra'am-Ta'al parties were disturbingly close to the idea of negating the State of Israel as a Jewish state and supporting the armed struggle of a terrorist organization. However, he found the evidence not significant enough to justify the rejection of the parties based on disqualification criteria set by the Supreme Court.

On Zoabi, Weinstein said that although the accumulation of evidence against her was significant and very disturbing, approaching the border of the forbidden, the petitions themselves did not present a "critical mass" of evidence.

Election Committee Vice Chairman MK Ofir Akunis (Likud), who submitted the petition to disqualify Zoabi, said, "I will continue to work hard in favor of banning Zoabi. I will present the Election Committee and the Supreme Court with all the data and evidence we have gathered so they can make the right decision."

On requests to disqualify the Strong Israel list on the grounds of incitement to racism, and the Shas and United Torah Judaism lists on the grounds that their central goal is the denial of Israel as a democratic state, Weinstein clarified that there was no legal basis or convincing evidence to support the disqualification.